Pop Essays #47: Stephen Gately, ‘New Beginning’

Howdy there campers, and welcome to this week’s Pop Essays, offering up yet more overlooked retro delights from the last 25 or so years. This week: a fresh start awaits one fifth of Ireland’s original boyband kings…

• Artist: Stephen Gately
• Song: New Beginning
• Released: 29/05/2000
• Writers / Producers: Stephen Gately / Anders Bagge / Arnthor Birgisson / Simon Climie
• Highest UK Chart Position: #3
• Chart Run: 3 – 15 – 27 – 35 – 47 – 49 – 51 – 43 – 48 – 54 – 47 – 80

By 2000, it was all but apparent that Boyzone weren’t to be a going concern for some time, as they all went their separate ways to pursue their solo endeavours. In fact, this moment came, frustratingly, just at the point their critical appreciation married up with their commercial success.

It seems such a typical cliche of 90s pop bands to find this just as they splintered, but in 1999, they’d added another two number one singles to their eventual tally of six, and their greatest hits collection, By Request, had sold well over a million copies and, but for Shania Twain’s Come On Over, was the biggest selling album of that year.

However, the signs were there that the break was coming anyway; in the summer of the previous year, the band’s lead singer and most popular member, Ronan Keating, had become the first to launch solo material, hitting the top of the charts with “When You Say Nothing At All“, from the soundtrack of the Richard Curtis romcom classic, Notting Hill.

The plan was for his wingman, second in command and the band’s heart throb, Stephen Gately, to then branch out on his own next, in the autumn of 1999. Initially, this was going to be with an original song, “Flying Without Wings” (yes, you read that right, the very same song that ended up being a massive number one hit for Westlife).

This was then changed, as Stephen had not long recorded a new version of Art Garfunkel’s 1979 chart topper “Bright Eyes”, for a new animated TV series based on Richard Adams‘ leporidae Golgotha fest, Watership Down, and it was appearing on release schedules for that October, but this too seemed to pass without event.

But somewhere between those plans being laid and – ultimately – not coming to fruition, something significant was happening in Stephen’s life. Since the beginning of Boyzone, it was common knowledge to the rest of his bandmates that he was gay, but was closely guarded from the rest of the world, meaning for a lot of the time in their imperial phase, he wasn’t truly enjoying it.

It’s hard to get this across now in a time when society is now largely more accepting of others’ sexual orientation, but 25 years on, there is still something that sits uncomfortably with the fact that he firstly felt like he had to hide who he was for so long for fear that his, and by definition Boyzone’s – largely female – fanbase would turn their back on them, but secondly, the way in which he ultimately ended up coming out, after being essentially outed against his will with an ultimatum by a tabloid newspaper in the June of that year.

In fact, quite the reverse happened when he did come out, and he was shown even more love than one could imagine, not just by Boyzone’s fans, but by such a wide spectrum of the public, and he in turn became visibly the best version of himself. His impact was such that he did more for openly out popstars – and a fair few fans too – than he is ever probably going to be given credit for.

With this context, it therefore makes total sense why his first solo single had to be – quite literally – a “New Beginning”. Co-written by Stephen with Anders Bagge and Arnthor Birgisson, two of the team of Swedish songwriters and producers that founded the Murlyn Music production house, it was also co-written by Simon Climie, the former lead singer of 80s power pop duo Climie Fisher, best known for their hits “Love Changes Everything” and “Rise To The Occasion”.

And it’s a real powerful statement of intent, sitting somewhere on a Venn diagram between George Michael’s “Freedom ’90” and New Radicals‘ “You Get What You Give”; it starts off with a softly sung but highly autobiographical opening – “Seven years of waiting / Seven years of holding on / Yes it’s been, yes it’s been / Always kept my faith and / I always knew this day would come” – seguing into an epic, singalong chorus: “Let everybody know / I’ve made up my mind / It’s time for a new beginning / I’m living my life / It’s time for a new beginning”.

The sheer joy that shines through in Stephen’s vocal is evident right down to the numerous ad libs and riffs that pepper the song to it’s glorious, string soaked conclusion: “Come on! Come on! / There’s gotta be a better way”. This is the sound of someone who truly sounded at his happiest and dare we say the freest he had ever felt in those seven years.

Interest in the single was always going to be heightened anyway, for all the factors we have discussed above. Although there was a rather ugly attempt to try and muddy the waters further on the media’s part, when it was discovered that this single was due to be released the very same day that Stephen’s bandmate, Mikey Graham, was releasing his first solo single, the Van Morrison-esque torch anthem “You’re My Angel”, and thus talk was hyped up of a “Battle of Boyzone”, similar to November 1999, when Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton released singles on the same day in the “Battle of the Solo Spice Girls“.

Fortunately however, on this occasion, such a battle – and the pegging of an unnecessary one, at that – failed to come to pass; mainly because neither of them had anywhere near the sales clout to overcome the strong selling duopoly of Sonique’s “It Feels So Good” or S Club 7’s “Reach“, both of which were still midway through a three week lockdown of the top 2 positions.

But Stephen had the greater success of the two in any case. “New Beginning” was released at the end of May 2000, with “Bright Eyes” tacked on as a double-A-side, and it debuted and peaked at #3; a thoroughly respectable showing indeed, with the album, also called New Beginning, entering the top 10 at #9 a few weeks later, and being certified gold for sales of 100,000 copies.

Alas, with the exception of Ronan Keating – who was installed as favourite and blew the achievements of the rest of Boyzone clean out the water, when he scored his second solo number one, “Life Is A Rollercoaster” and an eponymous number one debut album a month later – the media were unrealistically placing the other members’ efforts against the yardstick of success set by the band.

Compounding this, whatever support Stephen had behind him seemed to get smaller and smaller still with each of his subsequent releases. “I Believe”, recorded for the soundtrack of one of that year’s big movies, Billy Elliott, just narrowly missed the top 10, peaking at #11 that October. A hiatus of almost six months then elapsed before a third and final single, the Cheiron aping “Stay”, was released in April 2001.

Debuting and peaking at #13, it also marked the end of Stephen’s solo career, as he parted ways with Polydor Records. He later said himself in interviews that his heart wasn’t really in it beyond the first single, mainly because he was holding out hope that Boyzone’s year long hiatus would prove to be just that.

When it didn’t, he pivoted to a hugely successful West End career, appearing in shows such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, ultimately adding a successful second wind to his personal achievements, all before Boyzone did finally reconvene for their sellout comeback tour and album in 2007.

The rest of course, we sadly know, with Stephen’s tragic and unexpected passing at the tender age of 33 in October 2009, whilst on holiday in Majorca with his partner, Andrew Cowles, thus cutting short plans for a children’s novel he was working on, The Tree of Seasons, and ultimately his involvement with the first full Boyzone studio album in over a decade.

You could easily have imagined him, in a parallel universe where he was still alive, returning to give solo music another attempt whilst the band took time out between touring and releasing new music every few years or so, and being more in control of the material he recorded and released than he did on his first. If it had been anything like “New Beginning” was, it would have been a delight.

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